Running to Stand Still
by Cherie-24-Addict
Summary: A year after Day 8, Renee Walker has finally found the man on the run.  But tension builds as she makes her way to him, and emotions are never that simple.  Will Jack take her in or leave her in the dust?  T for language, title is name of the song by U2.


**A/N: This takes place about a year after Day 8. Renee is alive, as you may have figured out, and she's finally reconciling with part of her past. But it's never that simple, is it?**

**By the way, I don't own the song "Running to Stand Still". U2 does, and Bono's voice will never be topped on this song.**

**R/R, please.**

_And so she woke up_

_Woke up from where she was lying still_

_Said, I gotta do something_

_About where we're goin'_

As soon as I get the call, I bolt upright in bed, and for the first time in a year, I'm not overwhelmed by the pain of simple movements. Half-blind, because my contact lenses are in the bathroom and not on my eyes, I pat around aimlessly for my cell phone, knowing it could only be one person who's calling. Chloe O'Brian, the woman responsible for saving my life. Well, it was more of a quasi-saving, really. The whole world thinks I'm dead… the one person who means everything to me thinks that I'm lying cold in the ground, in a grave somewhere in Scarsdale. I died, and he nearly killed the President of a country powerful enough to start World War Three.

I should be angry at him. I should never want to speak to him again. I shouldn't be checking in with Chloe to find out how little Teri Wechsler is dealing with her grandfather's disappearance. But I can't help it. When you love someone, when you find your other half, you find yourself intermingled in everything that they do, and vice versa, regardless of how long you've known them.

So, yes, I should probably have tortured Chloe with a slow, painful death for not telling Jack when the doctors revived me, just moments after he left the hospital. He's had to deal with too much pain, much more than anyone should have to deal with. He'd finally begun to make peace with everything, and so now I'm to blame for causing all this turmoil, this anguish. It's all my fault, so I should be glad that Chloe, a woman nearly as love struck as me, hasn't boiled _my_ brains yet.

"It's me," I say by way of greeting when I finally find the piece of crappy metal that is my phone. It's too dangerous to use my real name, so we've gotten used to these vague conversations.

All my skills when it comes to being well-adjusted go out the window, though, when Chloe's blunt voice says, "I found him," and I freeze in my spot, my heart stopping.

_Step on a steam train_

_Step out of the drivin' rain,_

_Maybe run from the darkness in the night_

_Singing ah, ah la la la dee day_

_Ah la la la dee day, ah la la dee day_

With nothing but the bag on my back, I walk through the airport, trying to stop the frenzied thudding of my heart beat. Ever since Chloe arranged this flight two days ago, I've been trying to figure out how to do what I've been doing for years, ever since my days at the Bureau: compartmentalize and detach. I have to remember that he thinks I'm dead. I have to keep in mind that when Jack sees me for the first time, he's going to want to kill me himself.

I present my identification to the flight attendant at the desk, and she looks at it apathetically.

"Mary Lynn Wersching?" she asks. I nod, thank her briefly, and walk forward to the airplane that will take me out of the country that has borne so much suffering, especially where people like me are concerned. We sacrifice so much and get nothing. I run my fingers over the scar on my right wrist, prodding at it gently, and grimacing a little. As I left my apartment, it was raining steadily, and that doesn't bode well for my scars. To put it lightly, they hurt like hell when pelted with rain. I haven't been to a pool or swam in the ocean in years.

I sit down in my ordinary seat and take out the iPod Chloe purchased in her name, as well as the only thing that really belongs to me nowadays – the gray military jacket that I wore on the last day that Renee Walker was alive. I sniff a little, trying to hold back a stray tear, and notice something I'd never realized – it smells of black coffee, dark chocolate and hazelnuts, not of black cherries and the tobacco smoke that hung around me after my…hospital stay. It doesn't smell of Walker, or of Zadan, or of the new me, Mary Wersching. It's all Jack; just the way everything should have been.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Flight 3022 is ready for takeoff. Our destination is…"

_Sweet the sin_

_Bitter the taste in my mouth_

_I see seven towers_

_But I only see one way out_

"Cigarette?" the taxi driver asks. I numbly take one, as old habits die hard, and use the lighter he hands me, controlling my breathing just as he decides to dump my ass on the sidewalk.

"You'll be able to get here the rest of the way, darlin'," he sneers. "Expects me to take her to that sight," he mutters. "No one with any merit goes there."

"Well then," I say, more to myself than the driver, "it's a good thing I don't have any merit." I exhale, and a puff of smoke exits my mouth in a perfect O. I give him a pointed look as I hand the lighter back. "You know how shitty these things are, right?" I ask, pointing to the cancer stick in my hand.

He mutters something under his breath, and the only two words I can hear are "fucking hypocrite." At that, I'm not sure whether I should just walk away or shove my gun in his face. I choose the former and slap a wad of cash in his hand; I'm not over my anger, but shoving it away to deal with later is better than dealing with police. Despite my ties to the Bureau, the government is absolutely the last thing I want to deal with right now.

The city at night is a cross between haunting, devastating, beautiful, and decrepit, depending where you are. I hear lilting accents, laughing, drunken pub fights, crickets chirping, and if I listen close enough… I can hear someone singing softly. A homeless woman with only about five visible teeth holds a sign: "MONEY FOR NEEDLES, HEROIN, BOOZE." Well, at least she's being honest about what she wants the cash for.

As I continue to walk, I feel like I'm looking at a car crash – it's heartbreaking and fascinating, and since I know I cannot do anything to stop it, I am simply fascinated by watching the heat of the crash and its aftermath. I wonder if people felt the same way when they heard that Annabeth Renee Walker, one of the best agents at the Field Office, had attempted to commit suicide multiple times. I know I feel that way now, because all I can see is Jack opening the door to his apartment, seeing my face…and promptly slamming the door. I have no choice but to move forward, rather than stop the devastation I know is building.

_You gotta cry without weepin', talk without speakin'_

_Scream without raising your voice_

_You know I took the poison from the poison stream_

_Then I floated out of here _

_Singing ah, ah la la la dee day_

_Ah la la la dee day, ah la la dee day_

"Wersching," I say quietly as my phone rings amidst the typical Dublin chaos.

"Good," Chloe breathes. "You made it."

"Yes," I respond numbly, trying my absolute hardest not to say anything that will give me away. I am Renee Walker; I shoot a gun and smoke a cigarette. I can't afford to show that I'm afraid of what's coming. Especially where Chloe has been concerned; actually, it applies where everyone I've ever met is concerned. There is one exception to that rule, one person I could tell how I'm feeling with just a look, and he'd know exactly what I meant. The problem is, when I inevitably do so, all hell will break loose, as it always does.

"How are you doing?" Chloe asks. It's out of character for her, and it takes me by surprise.

"Doesn't matter," I say truthfully. "It doesn't matter what I'm feeling right now."

"Renee…"

I stop. It's the first time she's used my name in a year.

"Renee Walker is dead, Chloe," I remind her, my voice cracking.

"From where I'm standing, you seem to believe that, along with everyone else besides you, me, and Arlo."

"Excuse me?"

"You haven't accepted the fact that you're still breathing. I'm no people expert, but until you see Jack, you're not going to understand. You've been living half alive, just floating along, for over two years."

"Chloe…"

"Sorry," she mutters out of habit.

"Don't apologize," I say. "It's a sign of weakness."

"Yeah, yeah," she replies, annoyed. "I gotta go. Nadia Yassir from District is going to have my head if I don't get back to work."

"'Kay," I reply quickly.

"Renee, wait," she says, just before I hang up.

"What?"

"Calm down," she sighs, exasperated. "You'll be okay."

"When pigs fly," I say, hanging up as she starts to protest.

Who ever said that a disillusioned former FBI agent with a vengeance, two slit wrists, a bullet scar, a new identity, and a past that could make most full grown men curl up into a fetal position couldn't be an optimist?

_She runs through the streets_

_With her eyes painted red_

_Under black belly of cloud in the rain_

_In through a doorway, she brings me_

_White golden pearls, stolen from the sea_

I continue to walk down the street, trying to stay focused. But after years of depression, this miserable year of grief, and the tears threatening to burst, I can't. I just can't do it. I'm amazed I've been able to hold back for this long. I break into a run, and my heart begins to speed up again as tears rush down my cheeks and my eyes redden. I run, run, run through the streets, taking various turns as the directions I reviewed a thousand times become a reflex. I can do nothing but run, run away from everything chasing me, and to the apartment of a man I can only pray will forgive me for all the things that I've done.

As my legs continuously speed up, I run faster than I've run in years. I can feel the sidewalk pounding beneath my feet, the blood rushing in my thighs, and the sobs starting to come much more frequently. The night has become much calmer so that all I can hear is the sound of crickets chirping and my choking on the bile in the back of my throat.

Jack doesn't love me. If he loved me, he wouldn't believe I was dead. If he loved me, he would have asked Chloe about my funeral. If he loved me, he wouldn't have traveled all the way to Dublin, where he doesn't have anything to live for, where he's staying in a spot that most of the world has condemned. Hell, the towers just a couple blocks away were torn down a few years ago because of all the horrors that happened there. Danger is everywhere I go. It seems that both of us are much more comfortable in hell than heaven. That's probably where I'll end up when I really die.

My thoughts begin to run together, and that's when I realize just how incoherent I'm becoming. I never thought that I was the type of person who became so overwhelmed by something like this. I'm supposed to be strong. I'm supposed to be able to brave anything.

Maybe that's why, after all we've been through, I am now running to Jack. He knows just how untrue that is, and maybe he'll be able to remind me of that and finally create some sanity in me. That is, if I haven't reduced him to a complete mess.

_She is ragin', she is ragin',_

_And a storm blows up in her eyes_

_She will suffer the needle chill_

_She's running to stand still_

I'm still worked up, tears streaming down my face, as my feet finally slow to a walk. I see the buildings, see the lonely, dingy apartments all too common in this area of Dublin. I'm only a block away now, and I know that I can't avoid this. We've come too far, traveled too much, lost almost everything because of each other. I can't avoid the pull, the power that he inadvertently has over me. Maybe it's time to finally accept the fact that I'm never going to stop loving him, and I'm never going to forgive myself for it. Jack would say that I'm my own worst critic, but I know that there's no way he'll be forgiving me any time soon. I'm going to have to help him rebuild his trust in me, brick by brick, with a little mortar in between. Slow and steady, because both of us have nothing but time and each other.

I'm getting ahead of myself. I've thought that we'll have nothing but time and each other. That's only if he even takes me in. I seem to be forgetting the gravity of the situation. I destroyed his life. That should be enough to send him running when he answers the door.

I look around and realize that I've been standing outside his apartment for at least twenty minutes. It's one o'clock in the morning, and I know he's up. All I have to do is knock, and the rest will fall into place. Shaking, I raise my hand.

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

I hear the click of a gun and quiet footsteps padding to the doorway, and I'm tempted to run. As he unlocks and opens the door, he looks at me, and his eyes widen. He's just as frozen as I am, and the tension between us is palpable. My eyes water as I realize the truth: I have just made the biggest mistake of my life.

That's why I'm so surprised when he puts the safety on his gun back on and, with tears brimming in his eyes, wordlessly places a hand on my cheek with the softest touch.

"Renee Walker," he says, almost out of wonder. "Annabeth."

My eyes open, a tear drop falls, and I look at him questioningly as I swallow a sob. It takes only two words to completely undo the façade I've built up.

"Come in."

**A/N: This is one of my babies when it comes to writing. I adore U2, I adore this song, I adore Jack and Renee. Feed the review button, or it (and I) will become very, very sad and starved for love. (Reviews equal love. Love your fellow writers and love yourself.)**


End file.
